Healing the Rifts Within the LGBTQ+ Community

By Jason Salerno

Photo By Laura Turbow

A new documentary, in which drama therapy transforms LGBTQ stories — from bar raids to modern

backlash — into healing, releases on National Coming Out Day, October 11, 2026. Directed by Grace Walcott, a real-life marriage and family therapist, River of Life, LGBTQ+ follows queer participants of varying races, ages, identities, and backgrounds, including a 73-year oldnon-binary individual who

survived raids on gay bars, a 43- year-old therapist once labeled mentally ill for being trans, and a 21-

year-old who feels their Blackness has eclipsed their queer identity even within LGBTQ+ spaces. Over ten weeks, elders share stories of when being gay was a crime, when ACT UP staged bold demonstrations, and when the AIDS crisis vilified gay men — while younger participants walk the elders

through their own thinking on gender, challenging views some elders once dismissed as flippant, even bizarre. Walcott's own journey toward self-acceptance, and acceptance within the queer community, runs through the film as well. We spoke with Walcott about the tensions that surface between

generations, what internalized oppression looks like from the inside, and what healing, accountability, and solidarity can look like when a community turns inward to repair itself.

Jason Salerno:You've said protecting the LGBTQ community means "making room for difference, disagreement, and ongoing change." Where's the line between healthy disagreement and disagreement that does real harm?

Grace Walcott: Conflict and disagreement are a natural part of being in community. We have to

learn how to repair. Repair is a process through which we truly witness one another and find ways

to resolve our differences. It is a process of calling in rather than calling out. Often, differences resolve

themselves when we have truly had the experience of knowing one another. Knowing one another has to happen on a much deeper level than, say, the arguments that happen so often online.

JS: What is causing the divide among the LGBTQ community?

GW: LGBTQ+ elders and youth are not having enough opportunities to truly witness and experience one another. I think this can be a problem in many cultures, but in queer culture, we can be particularly

isolated from one another by age because we do not always have a biological connection. We need

more spaces in which people can show themselves and their challenges. Although technology has

created pathways for connection — social media, for example — it is also being used in ways that create

division.

JS: ACT UP and the AIDS crisis come up as touchstones of solidarity forged under attack. Do you think today's version of that solidarity has to look the same — collective, public, and confrontational — or does healing internal rifts require a quieter, slower kind of unity?

GW: There is a new way that political activism is happening. We need deep healing experiences that

unpack the systemic divisions that can affect our community. I sometimes hear reporters say that

we all need to just "listen to one another." We need to do much more than listen. We need to reach toward one another with curiosity and be open to healing together.

JS: Elders in the film admit dismissing pronoun changes as "flippant, even bizarre”.

GW: The younger participants walked them through their own thinking and when the elders fully

understood the meaning of pronouns and how some youth saw them as connected to liberation,

mutual respect developed. One of the elders in the film talked about how the youth held their ideas like a kaleidoscope: "No one was afraid to turn the dial and experience something else."

JS: The film also tackles the internalized transphobia that exists within LGBTQIA+ spaces.

GW: The trans participants in the group unpack transphobia by revealing their own challenges. One

shared how he was often seen as mentally ill. The elders, who remembered conversion therapy and

how homosexuality had been labeled a pathology in their time, felt an immediate sense of empathy.

What continually worked in our drama therapy group was witnessing one another and truly understanding each other's challenges. That created deep bonds.

JS: If a viewer recognizes their own gatekeeping, judgment, or internalized shame in someone on screen, what's the first step you'd want them to take?

GW: First, we must recognize that we all make assumptions and judgments. This is a natural part of

being alive. The more aware we become of the ways we may be alienating ourselves from one

another — for example, by making incorrect assumptions — the better we can make decisions that build a stronger community. If I could boil this down to one basic problem: we are not coming together regularly as a community to play, heal, be curious, and support one another. We are becoming more and more alienated as a society. This isn't good for our mental or social health. As a society, we need more nuanced conversations and spaces in which we can truly know each other.

River of Life, LGBTQ+ releases October 11, 2026. For more

information, visit RiverofLifeLGBTQ.com.

Photo By Laura Turbow